Tag Archives: ra dmards

People with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who haven’t responded well to one or more tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitor medications now have a new option. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved baricitinib (Olumiant), a pill that is taken once a day.

Baricitinib is a targeted disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD) that blocks Janus kinase (JAK), a group of enzymes that enable inflammatory signals to be activated inside a cell. It’s the second in this class of drug to hit the market for the treatment of RA; tofacitinib (Xeljanz) was the first, approved in 2012.